For each niche, I include a brief description, example target market, and a recommended book or article on developing expertise.

Amazon Product/Book Listing

Description: There’s a high demand for quality writers who understand how to optimize an Amazon book or physical product listing. This includes understanding how Amazon works concerning SEO and conversions.

Example Target Market: Target small to medium-sized sellers who launch multiple products a month on Amazon. Find the seller’s profile and contact them through their website.

Business Newsletters

Description: Having a monthly or quarterly physical newsletter is a growing trend for small businesses. If you have basic design skills, you can handle everything from writing the articles to design.

Example Target Market: Target local chiropractors offices who blog frequently and are active on social media (they have some interest in marketing). If you can get multiple clients inside one niche, you can use the same articles for multiple clients. If you can make it hands off, where you’re also working with the printer, you can charge premium prices.

Email Autoresponders

Description: Email isn’t dead. While it’s not new, there’s still a high demand for quality writers. Many businesses are using email to increase sales.

Example Target Market: Specialize in a specific type of email series, such as the product launch email sequence. Increase your value by learning one of the more popular email CRMs such as MailChimp. This way you can offer to not only write the email series but upload them to the client’s email provider.

Linkable Content

Description: Yes. This is writing blog posts. But here, you’re not writing content for $5 an hour. Instead, you’re writing content that gets links and shares. This is what the client (well, smart clients) want.

Example Target Market: Brian Dean, a well-respected authority on linkable content, created a method called The Skyscraper Technique. The technique involves finding a piece of content that already has a lot of links and making it better. There are dozens of other popular frameworks for content that get shared. Specialize in one of them, and you can make yourself very valuable.

SEO Product/Service Copywriting

Description: Google is making it worthwhile to have a lot of pages on your website. Therefore, many businesses are looking to create a page for each of the services they offer.

Example Target Market: Local businesses that offer a variety of services. For example, a financial office needs a page for financial planning, portfolio management, life insurance, estate planning, and potentially dozens of others. Learn the basics of on-page SEO, then reach out to local businesses with small websites.

Video Sales Letters

Description: Video Sales Letters or VSLs are trending up in the marketing space. Facebook Video and YouTube advertising are the catalysts. VSLs are often only a few minutes long (a few hundred words) and can increase conversion for a client.

White Papers

Description: Another tried and true form of marketing. What’s nice about a white paper, at least for me, is you can sink your teeth into a project. You can earn a nice living taking on 2-3 projects a month.

Example Target Market: Specialize in white paper writing for local financial service providers. Target local businesses with white papers on their website that are a few years old. Ask them if you can revise the white paper for them or write a different topic.

3 Websites with Freelance Writing Jobs for Beginners

I’m going to introduce you to where to find the best freelance writing jobs online for beginners.

Why three?

Two reasons

The website you choose to start doesn’t matter as much as your approach to getting your first client. If your strategy is right, you’ll get jobs, even in a crowded marketplace.

All three websites are large enough where there are a variety of freelance writing jobs for beginners available.

Another caveat, your long-term goal is to have clients come to you. Your short-term goal is to get paid to write something.

With more experience, you’ll start to gain knowledge about:

The best places to find the type of quality clients you seek

What works and doesn’t work in approaching clients

The kind of work you enjoy

Here are the three sites I recommend.

Upwork: Upwork is the largest marketplace online of freelancers. There are thousands of writing jobs available.

Indeed: Indeed is the largest job search aggregator. It aggregates job postings from job boards both online and off.

LinkedIn Profinder: This is a newer tool developed by LinkedIn. The advantage here is if you’re well connected on LinkedIn, you can search postings from connections. An introduction is a fantastic way to get a job.

Three tips when you’re searching:

Enter the keyword of your niche, NOT “freelance writer”. For example, I would search “landing page copywriter.”

Once you enter a search term in which the majority of jobs are a good match set up an email alert to get those jobs delivered to your inbox

Targeting local clients (even better a connection) which Indeed and LinkedIn allow you to easier do, makes things a bit easier

How to Get Freelance Writing Jobs With No Experience

You’ve picked a niche. You’ve been to sites where freelancers post jobs.

If you’re going to go from legit business idea to a paying client, your next step is to land a gig.

The good news, it’s a lot easier then some people think.

Although you do need, one thing–a portfolio sample to share with the prospective client.

The freelancer who gets awarded a job is often the person who has a sample in their portfolio closest to what the client is looking for.

If you have this sample, whether it’s real or “fake,” your chances of winning the job dramatically increase.

Just as important, you can ask for a price equal to the quality of your sample. (If you create a fictitious sample, you don’t need to worry about the client finding out you’re a fraud. If a client asks where it came from, tell them the truth. This demonstrates creative thinking on your end.)

As you’ve picked a niche and scrubbed job sites for freelance gigs, your approach from here is fairly simple:

Step # 1: Create a sample, whether real or fake

Step # 2: Find jobs that closely resemble your portfolio sample

Step # 3: Apply for those jobs

Freelance Writing Jobs For Beginners Proposal Template

The quality of most job proposals is low. It’s effortless to stand out from the crowd.

Just use some common sense in your proposal.

When I apply for jobs, I use a simple 3-step approach.

It seems to work (on Upwork at least), as Upwork says I get hired more often than other freelancers.

What’s important is I don’t try to win a job by writing a proposal.

Instead, all I’m trying to do is continue a conversation, preferably by jumping on Skype or a phone call.

3-Step Freelance Proposal Template

Step # 1: Show them you read the job description. You’d be surprised how many proposals are templated.

Hi There,

I Caught that you were looking for someone who can INSERT YOUR NICHE.

Thought we’d be a great fit.

Step # 2: Share a portfolio sample that closely aligns to what the client is looking for.

…As you might tell in my profile, I’m new here to “JOB SITE”. However, I’m not new to NICHE. I picked out a sample from my portfolio, which is very similar to what you’re looking for.

Is this what you had in mind?

Step # 3: Continue the conversation by leaving your contact details

Based on your job description, I thought we should at least take five minutes to chat. I’m available at THESE TIMES if you’d like to schedule a quick call. Or feel free to add me on Skype or call my cell when you have the time.

My skype ID is ______.

My cell at (123)456-1234.

Cheers,

YOUR NAME

BONUS: How To Get The Best Paying Freelance Writing Jobs

You may not win your first job. You may not even win your first dozen jobs you apply for.

Getting your first freelance writing job is a significant milestone in your career.

While this post gives you a framework for landing your first job, there’s one more thing I had to share.

There’s no shortage of freelance writers looking for work.

What there is a shortage of is writers earning good money.

A principle of marketing/positioning which has been valuable to me is Dan Kennedy’s Ladder of Wages (pictured right)

On the bottom of the ladder is the generalist. The generalist is the lowest paid person. In freelance writing, this is the person that writes 300-word blog posts for $10 each.

Moving up you have your specialist. A specialist will earn more than a generalist. In freelance writing, a specialty could be content marketing for local insurance agencies.

Next is being an authority. An example here is awriter who specializes in content marketing for local insurance agencies. This writer has a blog on the topic of content marketing for insurance agencies. Plus, has written for a handful of industry publications/blogs.

Above the authority is the celebrity. This person may not be as talented as an authority, but they’re paid more based on their celebrity status. For a freelance writer, this is the person that seen by an entire industry as “the-go-to-guy” for a particular need. When they walk into an industry conference, they’re instantly recognized.

Last, is the celebrity-authority. This is the writer who was the skills to back up their celebrity status. If you’re in copywriting, this might be someone like John Carlton, Dan Kennedy, or Brian Clark.

Establishing Yourself as Specialist

You don’t need to worry about becoming a celebrity-authority today. What you do need is a plan to get out of the bottom of the pyramid.

As long as you stay at the bottom of the pyramid (a generalist), you’ll be part of the lowest paid group of writers.

The good news is becoming a specialist is simple. One good sample can be all it takes for a client to value you as a specialist.

Becoming an authority isn’t much harder. This guest post I wrote for an industry blog, has been very valuable to me.

A guest post on an industry blog in your niche, a podcast interview, speaking at a local event–all position you as an authority. More importantly, they’re not difficult to accomplish.

About The Author

R.J. Weiss is the founder and editor of The Ways To Wealth, a Certified Financial Planner™, husband and father of three. He's spent the last 10+ years writing about personal finance and has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, MSN Money, and other publications.

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